Mark Borkowski 2010

Fringe Report [FR]: We're doing an article on Mark Borkowski.

Ken Campbell [KC]: I'd like to read it.

FR: It hasn't been written yet.

KC: I'd like to know about Mark. I don't know how much I know about him - I kind of know him as he's crossed into my life. He seems to be a big guy - he's rich, he's extraordinary. He's like, who's that great bloke for scandals? Max Clifford. The twin masks. Max Clifford is tragedy and Borkowski is comedy. If it's something that's going to be tragic and wretched and sordid, Clifford is your man to get the right fee. But if it's something of a lark, then Borkowski is your man, seems to me, and they could be represented by the masks.'

I may have met Borkowski through Marcel Steiner. I think it was because Mark wandered into discovering Marcel Steiner with The Smallest Theatre In The World. Marcel had a motorbike and sidecar - he was an enthusiast of it - he'd bring the sodding thing along on gigs. Coming back being late, it didn't work all that well. This was in the days of Ken Campbell's Road Show - the late 60s, early 70s.

We said: You can't keep carting that crap everywhere we go, unless it's of some use to us. Marcel said: Like what? I said: If you make a theatre out of the sidecar, the smallest theatre in the world, it would have some value. He said: what an idea, and he did it. He could get one person in it - two if squashed - he did many productions in it. I think Mark saw them, its real value, with the publicity thing.

Mark orchestrated adventures for Marcel. Borkowski had a party and through Marcel maybe I got invited - but I'm a bit hazy. There was the burning down of the theatre. Then the rebuilding fund, and everything like that. He made it a whole adventure.

FR: Like the tap dancing dog.

KC: Mark is his own man, he's got his own flight path. The things he does. You can give him money and he'll get you publicised. What's more amusing is the adventures he gets up to, unbidden. He only need to hear that I got a parrot that was producing art and he was over within minutes, giving advice on the whole thing.

FR: What art does Doris the parrot produce?

KC: All stuff you put on the wall, she produces. She'll do anything. She parrots around the place. But I frame it.

FR: How does she do this art?

KC: All kind of ways. The best is the simplest, where she pecks at a bit of paper. I called those the pecktures. That's really good, there's one that looks like Jesus to me. Then there are simple pictures, I think they're rather neat. I leave lots of paper around the place and she shits on it, slings stuff at it. And then when I think it's ready and that she's completely destroyed it, then I stick it in a frame. Mark says I used the wrong frames, they're kind of like Ikea frames. I've to go and get them all framed properly at some point.'

FR: He's not keen on the Ikea framing?

KC: No, he's got to spend money on it. I think that all happen when he organises the exhibition.

FR He's going to organise an exhibition?

KC: When it amuses him to he will. He said he could. It's kind of a happening, isn't it? We made a film that never got shown.

FR You and Mark?

KC: Yeah, in a way, there was a competition to make ten-second films. So we made ten of those - ten-second films of Doris and her art. It was for something-or-other beer. They promote stuff on the TV What are the beers? I can't remember. Cobra, the Indian beer. Anyway the guy who runs Cobra, a big man, he's got ambitions to be Prime Minister of England. And he thought that Doris's art was so controversial that to show it would prejudice his chances of being Prime Minister.

FR: Very possibly.

KC: I was on the film saying I think some of her divine work is channelled, things like that. There was another painting that she'd done which I called The Irish Problem. I mean the man is insane. I can't see how that's so controversial. That's the tale I've heard.

FR: Have these films actually been shown yet?

KC: No, they're too controversial. I did have one but I gave it to Nina Conti as a wedding present. I gave her one of Doris' paintings and the DVD.

FR: Any concluding thoughts about Borkowski?

KC: He's like a Jim'll Fix It - but he may well fix it way before you've asked him. I think he's the most important, kind of very good to know him, because you know that'll come - the moment. The moment we don't know, you see. He makes life. It's worth getting up because it may be today - The Borkowski Day. What one knows of Borkowski is that at some point there is likely to be a huge adventure.

END